Carla woke up the first day of school before my alarm went off and came bouncing into my room, all dressed. “Wake up! Wake up! It’s almost 6:30!” she called cheerily. I was a bit blearier than that, but her enthusiasm lifted me out of bed. She ate breakfast while overseeing the creation of the “First Day of Fourth Grade” sign; I did the colors wrong at first, so had to redo it. Please imagine me very fondly rolling my eyes.
We discussed her outfit: a pink sweater over black cutoffs. I told her I really liked the outfit, but wanted to let her know that some kids would be dressy for the first day. Would she prefer to wear something dressier? No, she did not. She wanted to express her “style,” she explained. Plus, she didn’t want to give everyone the impression that she was going to wear skirts and dresses every day. She’d worn a lot of dresses last year, and remembered that one day she wore something else to school and that her classmates expressed shock that she was not in a dress. She wanted to avoid a repeat of this type of incident.
Did you dress up for the first day of school? My mom took me school shopping every summer: a special trip to the Big City to go to the Big Mall and stock up on new clothes and shoes. I remember LOVING those shopping trips, and feeling very excited about and proud of my new array of school clothes.
Honestly, I loved everything about starting a new school year. Brand-new school supplies, with fresh notebooks full of unblemished paper. New binders – or Trapper Keepers – that were slightly stiff when you opened them. Pencils with sharp, clean points and plump pink erasers. New shoes, free of scuff marks. New classrooms, bright and cheery, and desks that have nothing in them. So many things to look forward to! I am so glad that Carla is feeling that happy anticipatory joy this year.
I cannot believe she is in fourth grade already. Fourth! Grade! Do you remember when she was brand new? Well, probably not because I was a terrible blogger at that time. But I remember it quite clearly, and it was only five minutes ago! And now she is NINE and in FOURTH GRADE.
My memory is not one of my strong points, and much of my childhood is a foggy mass dotted with blurry snapshots. But I remember big chunks of fourth grade. My teacher was wonderful – she had all these great ways of engaging us in learning – including this semester-long quest that I am sure was accompanied by lesson plans but just seemed, at the time, like a big, long exciting game. She read aloud to us from fun books. She arranged a class field trip into the badlands where we got to dig for dinosaur bones.
I remember the boy I had a crush on in fourth grade. I remember one classmate took a family trip to Japan, which was kind of unheard of back then, at least in my small hometown, and brought back a ton of exotic snacks that we all got to try. I remember sleepovers with school friends. It was a great year. I hope Carla’s year is just as memorable.
Carla was all ready for school a full 45 minutes before we needed to leave, so we settled in to read the book I am reading to her (Where the Red Fern Grows, which I have never read before).
We took her photo in the rain and I dropped her off. She skipped into school without a backward glance. Really, could there be a better way to begin a new school year?
As I remember my entire sixth grade class pouring into the hallway sobbing after the end of Where the Red Fern Grows, I just need to warn you that the ending is such that an entire sixth grade class went sobbing into the hallway.
I did dress up on the first day of school every year and I remember it stopped abruptly in fifth grade but no one had given me the memo. So perhaps Carla is just ahead or all the young people are now and she did get the memo.
It sounds like she has a great first day and a great year ahead of her.
I mean, I am fully prepared for the dogs to die. I don’t think my kid is, though. Yikes. Clearly I need to avoid reading the ending to her before school.
Ohhh, I love this post. I DO remember when Carla was just brand-new! Can’t believe 4th grade already. I remember 4th grade felt very BIG to me when I was that age. I hope she has a wonderful year! (Also the same warning about WTRFG — I loved that book but it does cause emotions!)
Be prepared for a VERY SAD ending to that book. Like a classroom of full of sobbing children. I remember it as the first book that made me cry (a lot). You might want to read ahead yourself when you get close to the end to be ready.
OMG — I guess I need to do that!
Awwwww! I love every single detail of this! And also, I remember reading a post from you when you were pregnant!!! Fourth grade. Wow. I do remember some parts of that year for sure.
I used to always have a new outfit for the first day of school! We would often cross the line for BTS shopping so there’s a chance I shopped in the same city as you!!
Here’s to an awesome school year! You’re off to a roaring start! xoxoxo
PS in case you didn’t know, you were the one who got me onto the kindle 🙂
❤️❤️❤️
Oh god- the recoil I did at the title of the book you’re reading made me hit the chair back. It’s… so much worse (and graphic) than Ol’ Yeller.
Why must childrens authors DO this kinda stuff to kids?!?!
Ack! You all have me so freaked out! I need to go read the ending myself before I read it out loud and ruin both our lives.
Her outfit sounds perfect! I remember always wearing a new outfit but not necessarily a dress. I remember times tables from 4th grade and long division. The times tables were timed so they were scary to me. I had a warm and nurturing teacher though and she was very reassuring.
Oh the times tables. Yuck!
That sounds wonderful! Where the Red Fern grows was the first book I ever read that made me cry (I was 8), and when my third grade teacher chose it for a read aloud, I told her I could not handle it again, so I got to go into the learning center and read my own book during read aloud time– always a drama queen. Dorothy is also a 4th grader, and it is such a delightful age.
It is a great age!
I am soooo curious about where you are from! I think it has to be ND or SD since you took a field trip to the Badlands! I know you prefer to be anonymous, but since I am from ND, I would be thrilled to find another North Dakotan randomly through blogging!
I love Carla’s enthusiasm for school! That is how I was, too. I loved the start of school. But we went back in mid-August and I don’t think our school had a/c and it was usually still hot then so I was bummed to have to keep wearing my summer clothes. We would go clothes shopping in the summer so I had all these new outfits for the fall/cooler months that I had to wait for what felt like forever to wear!
Oh and I do not have the best memories of 4th grade. I had a whacko teacher. He was uber religious and told us that women were responsible for sin in the world since we ate the apple in the garden of Eden. I’m not even kidding. He also had all these weird rules, like you couldn’t hand in an assignment w/ the crinkles on the side (like if you used a spiral bound note book). He wanted us to cut them off before handing it it and if we forgot, the would fold the paper in half and wrip off the side w/ the crinkles and if that ripped off answers to things then that was the consequence of not following his rule. We could also only have 3 books on our desk at a time. I had 4 once and walked over and tipped over my desk while I was sitting in it. My parents went to the principal/school board and he was fired after that year but wow it was an AWFUL year for me and gave me a lot of anxiety.
Oh my GOSH that teacher sounds awful! I am so sorry you had to endure a whole year with him, but glad that he was fired — hopefully he found a career better suited to his “talents” and never terrorized another student.
I remember first day of school outfits! And more to the point, I remember Trapper Keepers! Happy first day of school to Carla!
Did you dress up for the first day of school? YES! It was a big deal and I took it seriously. Of course I lived in a small town so my style wasn’t necessarily currently fashionable, but I wanted to give the right impression so I put my heart into it. Like Carla
That is AMAZING! My mom did always take us shopping for back to school, and I loved the clothes but I think I loved the school supplies more. I remember my fourth grade teacher (Mrs. Prowse). It wasn’t a stellar year all around – there was some mean girl behaviour – but I always mostly liked school. I always let Eve pick her first day outfit and sometimes I wanted to nudge her a bit in the dressier direction, but I’m glad I let her do her own thing.
We never did the back to school sign thing, but I am a FULL TEN YEARS MORE THEN NINE YEARS OLD with Eve and even more with Angus, and I still make them send me a first-day-of-school photo.
I don’t remember reading Where the Red Fern Grows, but I recoiled hard from the recap on Wikipedia, so either I never read it, or my brain completely blocked me from the trauma, whew.
I do remember getting new outfits for back to school, though I was in a uniform for grades 4-8, so I feel that I missed the prime years. I liked getting new outfits, but they were often for cooler weather than we got at the start of the school year, and I hated to wait. I liked 4th grade, but 5th was my favorite!
I have fond memories, mostly, of 4th grade. I loved my teacher and was super worried for him when he rushed out of school one day near the end of the year – his wife was pregnant and there was a complication. Everyone was fine, but I don’t recall him returning for the rest of the year. He sent me a letter via the school system my senior year to congratulate me on graduating and asking what my plans were for college, etc. I liked him enough that I didn’t even care that I very nearly failed math in his class. (It just was NOT clicking for my brain. I got it all the next year, though.) I also recall getting in trouble a lot in his class for reading a book in my desk during lesson time and not paying attention.
I was also super lucky because I met my best friend the second time in 4th grade. (We KNOW we had a play date in kidergarten (I brought fun dip candy) but we cannot figure out how that got arranged. I was in PM kindergarten, she was in AM. She didn’t join girl scouts until 1st grade, etc. Even our mothers agree we had said playdate in kindergarten but have no idea how we knew each other.) She’s still my best friend today, which means we both don’t like to do math on how long we have known each other.
“I remember one classmate took a family trip to Japan, which was kind of unheard of back then, at least in my small hometown, and brought back a ton of exotic snacks that we all got to try.” – I read this as “brought back a ton of exotic SNAKES” and was Very Concerned for a moment there.
I love reading stories about kids who are super excited about the first day! I hope Carla’s enthusiasm continues throughout the year.
And I am going to have to agree with the others who have warned to have tissues for the end of Where The Red Fern Grows. (Which I read in 5th grade. I am STILL annoyed at the school principal because I got the book at a PTA bookfair where we got to pick one free book a semester, maybe?, and that was my pick. She told me she didn’t think I could finish it in a weekend and I did, with a lot of tears, and then she had no memory of the conversation/challenge she issued on Monday. Hrmph.)
How is this child already in the FOURTH GRADE?! Holy cow.
I loved getting all the new school supplies, new shoes, etc. In my elementary school we wore uniforms (plaid jumpers with white shirts, to be exact). So although my clothes were new, they weren’t anything to be excited about.
For the life of me, I cannot recall my fourth grade teacher (this will haunt me in the middle of the night, I just know it).
I’m sure Carla will have a wonderful year!
Came back to tell you, I remeber that my 4th grade teacher was a nun (one of the only two in that school) but I’ll be damned if I can’t remember her name (and I loved her!).
I told you this would haunt me…
LOVE the sign. How fun. I’ve never done a formal sign for the first day and now see families that have it spanning a decade for multiple children and it looks like such a great idea. I’m too much of a completist to start now.
I adore “children’s” lit but loathed Where The Red Fern Grows. I didn’t love it before the ending, but wow – it was just too much for me.
Sounds like you are getting plenty of feedback on WTRFG. Add me to the folks who CLEARLY remember the book and its ending. I honestly could not imagine being ABLE to read it aloud as I wouldn’t be able to actually speak. That being said, it is a well written book. Also, I am easily traumatized as Old Yeller (which I literally, just this moment, at age 53, realized that refers to the dog’s color and not that the dog, somehow, like YELLED or something! lol) Bambi, Dumbo, etc.
Loved first day of school supplies as well, the newness and crispness and hope of it all. I still love early September for that reason!
I hope she has a great year.
Small sample size, but I remember 4th grade being a good year and it was good for both of my kids, too. I think 9 is a great age.
What I remember about first day of school outfits was I could never decide whether to wear my new clothes (which were for fall/winter) or something appropriate for the weather, which was still hot. My kids let me pick their first day outfits through elementary school (with varying levels of indifference/reluctance).
I am late to reading this, but it makes me so happy. I loved the start of school each year. We wore uniforms, but I think the first day was a welcome mass and we didn’t wear uniforms on the first day. I loved my 4th grade teacher so much that when it was time to go on the field trip, my BFF and I requested that we be in the teacher’s group. She was supposed to be in charge of the naughty boys that she couldn’t stick a volunteer parent with, but we were fine with that.
I don’t remember when Carla was an infant, but FOURTH GRADE? That took me by surprise. Wishing her continued happiness all school year.
Time flies so incredibly fast. I don’t remember doing school shopping at all (it wasn’t really a thing in Germany, I think?!) but I have some fond memories of 4th grade as well. I hope Carla has the best year yet.
Cheers to 4th grade! I love how excited Carla was to start her new year. I remember mostly being anxious, haha.
My parents would always take us school shopping and I think we would get 3-4 new outfits, but nothing “dressy.” I don’t remember dressing up for the first day of school! I would just wear one of my new outfits.